Monument Inversion
Saturday, January 26, 2013
On Saturday morning I slept in a little later than usual. A winter storm moved into the area overnight and when I looked outside towards the Colorado National Monument I could see that the humidity from the storm caused the inversion layer over the valley to thicken. I quickly got dressed and drove up to the Monument. I was planning on a short trip up there to hopefully get a couple of decent photos, but I ended up spending over 5 hours up there!
Since there was another layer of clouds above me there was no direct light the whole time I was up there, but I really enjoyed photographing the muted colors of the canyons in these conditions. It’s certainly different from what I normally shoot, which is what I was trying to do.
The base of Window Rock was just above the inversion layer.
Window by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
The thick inversion filling up part of Wedding Canyon.
Filling by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr
The inversion layer sort of acted like water in the ocean. The fog would recede a little and then advance again. I waited until the wave of fog crashed against the cliff to take this photo.
Wave by IntrepidXJ, on Flickr